If you price work for councils, housing associations, schools or any other public buyer, PPON registration is the one piece of free admin no UK contractor can afford to skip. Since the Procurement Act 2023 reforms went live on 24 February 2025, Find a Tender has been upgraded into the government's central digital platform for public procurement, and you now need a PPON - a Public Procurement Organisation Number - to bid on above-threshold public contracts. The registration is free, self-service and takes about 15 minutes. This guide covers what the number actually does, how share codes work, and the exact steps to get set up today.
What the Procurement Act 2023 changed
Find a Tender has been the UK's home for high-value public contract notices since 31 December 2020, when it replaced the EU's OJEU/TED system after Brexit. For its first few years it was mostly a notice board: you could search opportunities, but supplier records lived on dozens of separate buyer portals.
The Procurement Act 2023 changed that. When the reforms took effect on 24 February 2025, the government relaunched Find a Tender as the central digital platform (CDP) - a single place where above-threshold notices are published and, crucially, where every supplier registers once and stores their core business details. Lower-value opportunities still appear on Contracts Finder, which remains free with optional registration, but the CDP is now the front door for serious public work.
One honest nuance, straight from the official guidance: registration is not a standing legal obligation that hit every contractor the moment the Act commenced. GOV.UK's own position is that suppliers only need to register at the point they want to bid for a contract. In practice the distinction barely matters - you cannot submit an above-threshold bid without it, so the sensible move is to register before a live deadline is breathing down your neck.
PPON registration: what a contractor actually gets
When you register your organisation as a supplier on Find a Tender, the platform assigns you a PPON - a unique identifier that follows your business across every public procurement in the UK. Registration runs through GOV.UK One Login, the same government sign-in used for a growing number of services, and the platform stores your core details: legal company name, Companies House number where applicable, and your basic organisation profile.
Two things make PPON registration unusually painless by contractor-compliance standards:
- It is completely free. There is no fee to register and no paid tier.
- No documents are required simply to obtain the number. It is pure self-service data entry - no insurance certificates, no accounts, no references at this stage.
What a PPON is not
A PPON is not vetting, and it is not approved-supplier status. Find a Tender does not check your insurance, your health and safety record or your finances. Each buyer still runs its own selection process per tender - that is where insurance minimums, SSIP-style accreditations, references and financial checks actually bite. Registering gets you to the start line; it does not win you the race.
Share codes: the bit that saves you real hours
The share code is the practical payoff of the whole system - and yes, "share code" is the real, current GOV.UK terminology: once your details are complete, you confirm them and the platform generates the code. When you bid on an above-threshold notice, the buyer's e-tendering portal asks for that code, uses it to pull your stored information, and spares you retyping the same company details for the umpteenth time.
The code is reusable across opportunities and across portals. That matters more than it sounds: when we audited 557 UK supplier registration routes for PlanaJob in July 2026, the same pattern kept surfacing - county council tender portals, central government e-sourcing systems and housing association tender packs all layering the CDP share code requirement on top of their own registration steps. One number, one profile, one code, dozens of doors.
Who needs a PPON - and when
Not every job needs one. Based on the current rules published on GOV.UK and what buyers are actually enforcing:
- Bidding on above-threshold public contracts: mandatory. You cannot submit a compliant bid on an above-threshold Procurement Act 2023 notice without the central digital platform behind you.
- Working for large housing associations: moving fast. Since 1 April 2026, several of the biggest housing associations require a PPON for any new contract worth more than £30,000 including VAT, even where their own supplier questionnaires used to be enough.
- Below-threshold and private work: not required today. Domestic jobs, private landlord work and most small commercial contracts do not touch the CDP at all.
If you sit in the third group, register anyway. It costs nothing, takes minutes, and buyer policies are only moving in one direction. Communities like Contractor Club are a useful place to hear which buyers in your patch are enforcing the requirement strictly and which are still phasing it in.
The 15-minute PPON registration walkthrough
Have three things to hand before you start: your exact legal name as it appears on Companies House, your company number (where applicable) and access to the email address you want government notifications sent to. Then:
- Set up a GOV.UK One Login at Find a Tender if you do not already have one - email, password and an identity verification step.
- Choose to register an organisation as a supplier, not a buyer.
- Enter your core company details - legal name, Companies House number where applicable, and your organisation profile.
- Confirm the details. The platform assigns your PPON.
- When a bid asks for it, return to the platform, check your information is current and generate your share code.
- While you are in there, save searches for your trades and regions and switch on email alerts, so relevant notices land in your inbox instead of relying on you remembering to check.
That is the whole process. If anyone offers to do it for a fee, they are charging you for a free government form.
From registered to actually winning work
A PPON makes you eligible; it does not fill your diary. Public-sector pipelines are slow - notices, selection stages, evaluation - so treat above-threshold work as a medium-term play and keep your private pipeline full while tenders grind through. Whether chasing public frameworks suits your margins and cash flow at all is a strategy question in its own right, and Construction Arbitrage is worth a read on that side of the business.
For the private side, platforms like PlanaJob let property managers compare quotes from vetted contractors, which means steady maintenance work without a 40-page tender pack - you can create a free account and start quoting the same week. If you want to understand how the other side buys, see how UK property managers raise and award jobs, and find more compliance explainers like this one on the PlanaJob blog.
FAQ
Does PPON registration cost anything?
No. Registration on Find a Tender is free, per GOV.UK, and no documents are needed simply to obtain the number - it is self-service. Any third party charging for "PPON registration services" is reselling a form you can complete yourself in about 15 minutes.
Do I need a PPON for private property management work?
No. Private landlords, block managers and letting agents do not run Procurement Act processes, so jobs sourced privately or through a marketplace need no PPON. The caveat: some large housing associations now require one for new contracts above £30,000 including VAT, so if your clients include housing providers, register now rather than mid-bid.
I already have accounts on council tender portals - do I still need this?
Yes, for above-threshold work. Buyer portals have not gone away - you will still register with them and complete tender-specific questionnaires - but above-threshold submissions now also ask for your central digital platform share code. The PPON sits alongside your portal accounts; it does not replace them, and it does not replace each buyer's own insurance, accreditation and reference checks.